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Overview

A Rock Is Lively by Dianna Hutts Aston, Sylvia Long

From the award-winning creators of An Egg Is Quiet, A Seed Is Sleepy, and A Butterfly Is Patient comes a gorgeous and informative introduction to the fascinating world of rocks. From dazzling blue lapis lazuli to volcanic snowflake obsidian, an incredible variety of rocks are showcased in all their splendor. Poetic in voice and elegant in design, this book introduces an array of facts, making it equally perfect for classroom sharing and family reading.

About the Author

Dianna Hutts Aston is the author of many acclaimed picture books for children. She also manages a non-profit foundation, The Oz Project, and has established an annual Teen Writer's Workshop, both of which serve underprivileged Mexican teens. She lives in Mexico.

Sylvia Long is the illustrator of many award-winning books for children, including the classics Hush Little Baby and Sylvia Long's Mother Goose. Her detailed paintings are inspired by her love of nature. She lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Editorial Reviews

"A visual and verbal feast, this book deserves a place on every library shelf. " - Boston Globe/Best Children's Books of the Year"

Designed to engage kids in studying rocks, the writing and illustrations in this book do indeed make rocks lively. Ms. Long entwines streams of silver and other minerals amongst the rocks to show the reader the connections. Ms. Aston's text shows the reader how various types of rocks develop starting with some rocks' creation below the Earth's surface in conditions hot enough to melt rock. These rocks are called igneous. Other rockssedimentaryare made from eroded pieces of other material which then smush together, capturing fossils in the middle, like the filling of a layer cake. Metamorphic rock changes from igneous or sedimentary rock through heat and pressure forming slate or marble. Rocks also are worn down by natural forces such as wind, rain, and waves grinding the surfaces smaller and smaller until the pieces are pushed underground to become magma. Then the rock cycle starts over. The author and illustrator also show what rocks have been used for over the eons, by humans and other creatures. For instance, there is rock in toothpaste of all things! Birds swallow gravel to help digest their food. Sea otters and birds break open shell fish with rocks, as do chimpanzees. Humans made tools and weapons out of rock. They also used rock as paint or to carve with. The book is a good addition to any science library in upper elementary-school grades, though more clarification of the connection between mineral and rock is needed. However, the illustrations are as brilliant and welcoming as the writing is informative, this book is a keeper. Reviewer: Sarah Maury Swan

Children's Literature - Sarah Maury Swan

Gr 3–6—Another beauty from Aston and Long, creators of the equally eye-catching An Egg Is Quiet (2006), A Seed Is Sleepy (2007), and A Butterfly Is Patient (2011, all Chronicle). This time they take on the seemingly sedentary world of rocks and minerals, showing them to be anything but (when you know your geology). Boiling underground, freezing in space, colorful or drab, enormous or minuscule, health food (grits for gizzards), tools for prehistoric man and modern chimps, canvas for paleolithic art or construction material for the Taj Mahal-rocks get around. Aston's quiet text follows their morphings from magma to various incarnations and back again, while Long's meticulous, elegant watercolors record their astounding diversity. Rocks are "surprising" as geodes. They are "creative" when viewed as pigments for a prehistoric palette. Rocks are "lively." A handsome piece of bookmaking from the artistically rock-strewn cover to the glorious azurite endpapers, this is an elegant window into the hitherto static existence of rocks and minerals. Eye-catching and eye-opening.—Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY

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